Travel Log: A Long Escapade (Day 17 & 18)

Previous Day (Istanbul City & 2 Continents Tour)

Destination: Greece & Turkey

Duration: 18 Days 17 Nights (Aug 06~Aug 23, 2012)

Day 17 & 18: Istanbul –> Kuala Lumpur -> Penang

This was to be our last day in paradise before flying back to reality. *sob* Our day began with a breakfast (what else?) before we walked to the Grand Bazaar from Daphne Hotel since the Bazaar was closed when we visited yesterday. It was a 15 minutes stroll before we reached the Bazaar safely. =)

The Grand Bazaar as its name suggested was Grand and Huge. There were several entrances to the bazaar but we entered it from the center entrance.  It was indoor and swarmed with lots of tourists. Thousands of stalls were inside and we quickly noticed that the location of the stalls was given based on the products such as leather products at one end and souvenirs like t-shirts and scarf were at another end.

Grand Bazaar Central Entrance

Old Bazaar Section inside Grand Bazaar - mostly Leathers

One thing that I didn’t like about the place was most stalls were selling without price tags. You wouldn’t know how much something cost unless you asked the shopkeeper so basically that person could quote you anything he/she liked. We had a real experience in how ridiculous these people could be: we saw this beautiful fridge magnet so we asked how much does it cost. The joker quoted us 50Lira for 2 fridge magnets! And NO, this is NOT A TYPO! And we understood his English perfectly and were shocked at his audacity. Gosh, it meant 1 freaking fridge magnet cost 25Lira (around RM50!!!). He either thought we were idiots or too rich to care about price! We actually saw the exact same fridge magnet the day before just outside Grand Bazaar and the shopkeeper there quoted us only 6Lira per piece. Imagine the differences! 25Lira Vs 6Lira!!! Needless to say we bought that fridge magnet at 6Lira from another stall. That was why I still preferred Spice Bazaar more than Grand Bazaar – at least most stalls in Spice Bazaar had a price tag.

Grand Bazaar Interior

Another Entrance

We walked back to Daphne Hotel to catch our airport shuttle to Ataturk Airport to end our long holiday. There was a long queue at MH counter as long as immigration checkpoint. We finally got in and used last of our Liras to buy a Simit at a random bakery there. Taste nice! =)

Goodbye Istanbul

City Wall from Shuttle

Long Queue

Last Simit!

We then embarked on our 10 hours flight and were totally disappointed at MH service. 1^st of all - there was food stain all over the seatbelt, 2^nd of all - there was drink stain all over the in-flight TV, 3^rd of all – the stain was all over the fuselage near our seat as well. I guess there was a terrible turbulence in the flight before and the crew was simply blind or just too lazy to clean those up. We called upon a stewardess and showed her the stain, she showed her impatient face and simply use a towel to wipe the TV screen and the seatbelt halfheartedly and asked us: Anything else? Well, I guess I could conclude that MH crew was indeed blind as the stains were obviously still there after her half-a$$ attempt. There were no apologies or anything at well and her face made it clear that we were idiots to ask her to help clean up. We ended up cleaning the TV screen, the seatbelt and the fuselage ourselves. MH – Malaysian Hospitality! How ironic!

Is that Curry?!

Stain again?!

OMG! There must be a horrible turbulence in the last flight!

I couldn’t fall asleep since it was basically in the afternoon. Thankfully Avengers was on! I was proud to say that I watched it twice on this flight just to swoon for Loki. *facepalm* Btw, I’d also become an expert in fast-forwarding button using the in-flight entertainment control! Would MH want to hire someone with this kind of expertise? *puppy eyes* But then I guess I won’t be qualified since I was not blind. =P

Goodbye Turkey!

Nice Landscape

More Beautiful Landscape

Our in-flight meals of the day were:-

Beef Kofta with Plain Rice

Chicken Stroganoff with Potato Wedges

There was no detailed menu as MH style.

I guess I loved the chicken more thanks to its creamy sauce. The beef was kind of dry.

This is not food! This is a baby sleeping!

The Chicken Set

The Beef Set

After like 4 hours, we were served with our snack pack again which was similar to our flight from KL to Istanbul. Then we were served breakfast AGAIN around 2 hours before landing. The menu was:-

Plain Omelette with Chicken Sausage

Fried Chinese Noodles with Stir Fried Beef

The Omelette was a great surprise, I’d tried omelette on MH before and they all tasted meh but this one was really fluffy and tasty! I guess it depended on the location catering as well. The noodle was just passable.

Omelette Set - This was surprisingly good!

Noodle Set

We arrived in KLIA at the wee hour of 6.30am and lo and behold – our 7.30am connecting from KL to Penang was cancelled due to some technical issue!!! WTF!!! The MH ground crew put us on a later flight at 9.15am and gave us separate seat since we ‘checked in too late’! HELLO?! You just cancelled our flight and put us on a different flight and now we ‘checked in too late’?! Wow!!! Amazing! Ladies and Gentlemen! Let me introduce you to MH! Malaysian Hospitality!!!

CANCELLED?!! So many cancellations!

Anyhoo, we finally reached Penang Airport at around 10.30am and ended our long trip. It was definitely a fun one albeit all good things come to an end. Let’s plan for another trip… Hmm.. perhaps next year else my wallet would definitely disagree with me. I guess my boss would disagree with me as well! Ciao! Till next time!

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